The Meeting-Place of Geology and HistoryDawson, John William, Sir
Religion
The Meeting-Place of Geology and History
Dawson, John William, Sir
Deluge; Prehistoric peoples
My first instance shall be one originally described by Canon Tristram,
and which I had an opportunity to examine in 1884--the caverns or
rock shelters in the face of the limestone cliff of the pass of
Nahr-el-Kelb, north of Beyrout. At this place, in old caverns partly
cut away in the forming of the Roman road round the cliff, there is
a hard stalagmite, or modern limestone, produced by the calcareous
drippings from the rock. This is filled with broken bones intermixed
with flint flakes suitable for use as knives or spears or darts, and
occasional fragments of charcoal. The bones are those of large animals,
and have been broken for the extraction of the marrow; and the whole
is evidently the remnants of the cuisine of some primitive tribe of
hunters, now cemented into a somewhat hard stone by stalagmitic matter.
The bones are not those of the present animals of Syria, but principally
of an extinct species of rhinoceros (_R. tichorhinus_), a species
of bison, and other large mammals which inhabited the region in the
pleistocene and post-glacial periods. It is farther known that these
animals had been extinct long before the early Phœnicians penetrated
into this country, perhaps 3000 B.C., and that the deposits existed in
their present state when the early Egyptian conquerors passed this way,
at least 1500 B.C., on their march to encounter the Hittites. It is also
known that the earliest historic aborigines of the Lebanon, certain rude
tribes which seem to have existed there before the migration of the
Phœnicians, subsisted on the modern animals of the district, and used
flint implements and weapons somewhat differing from those of the
earlier cave men of the region.[17] What, then, were these earlier cave
men? Certainly no people known to history, unless those whom we know as
antediluvians.[18]
[17] See the illustration on p. 97.
[18] For more detailed description see _Modern Science in Bible Lands_;
also _Egypt and Syria_, in the _Bypaths of Bible Knowledge_, by the
author.
From the Lebanon we may pass to the west of Europe, where in France and
Belgium a vast number of interesting relics of palæocosmic man have been
discovered, and have been scientifically examined.
We may take as an illustration the cave of Goyet, on the cliffs bounding
the ravine of the Samson, a tributary of the Meuse. This cavern is about
forty-five feet above the present ordinary level of the river, but in
post-glacial times seems to have been invaded by inundations, as it
shows on its floor five distinct ossiferous surfaces, separated by
layers of river-mud. These successive surfaces have been carefully
examined by M. Dupont, and their contents noted.
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